Oakdale Swimmers Close Season At Sections

POSTEDMay 19, 2009 4:26 p.m.

Oakdale Swimmers Close Season At Sections

Lady Mustang Jessica Myers gets into ...

Oakdale has continued its recent emergence onto the local high school swimming scene with a solid showing during the Sac-Joaquin Section Swim Championships at Tokay High May 14-16.Oakdale got solid contributions from its impressive group of qualifying girls landing in four events during the Saturday championship round. Jessica Myer was the team’s only individual to advance, finishing the 100-meter fly in 1:04.69.The squad was able to turn some heads during the always-exciting relay events, turning in a time of 2:04.09 in the 200-meter medley relay. The Lady Mustangs made their biggest impact on the meet with an impressive showing in the 400-meter free relay.The team of Myer, Stevie Cordoza, Kelsey Knollmueller and Savanah Stender put together a school record in the meet with a time of 4:00.80 on championship Saturday.The same group also had a nice showing during the 200-meter free relay event, posting a time of 1:48.06 during the season ending meet. Oakdale also had a great deal of success on the boys end of the meet, sending nearly 10 swimmers to the final afternoon in the Tokay High pool.“I was not surprised,” Oakdale head coach Russ Van Cleave said. “I am never going to be surprised when they swim well, I know they’re going to swim well.“I was relieved that they did, because it’s very important to them.”The group combined to break three school records during the end of the year event. The boys 200-meter medley relay team of Andrew Van Cleave, Tyler Lee, Kevin Mahaney and Chris Terwilliger combined to post a 1:44.63 to rewrite the school’s record book in the event.Lee also set a school record in the 200-meter IM, finishing the event in 2:02.25 for the new record.The Mustangs’ 400-meter free relay team waited until the final day to break into the record books, setting a new school mark in the 400-meter free with a time of 3:26.74.“There were five juniors and five freshmen who made the trip to that meet,” Van Cleave said of his squad. “So next year the group is going to go back and hopefully be competing for a top-10 section finish.”The Mustangs will obviously want to elevate their program to new heights, but it will be up to each swimmer as an individual as to how low they can take their improvement times.“I don’t tell them what to do outside of the 14 weeks that I have them,” Van Cleave said. “There are kids who are going to swim for me, there are kids who are going to swim and play water polo just like before.“If they don’t stay in shape and work hard there are going to be kids that take their place,” Van Cleave continued. “We’re at the point now where we’re not begging people to swim. We have a really good program of kids who work hard.”